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...on the beautiful, warm day in March — as I set my hook into a big one. It was Falls Lake, North Carolina, and my first-ever bass tournament. My emotions were running wild from all the new and exciting things going on around me. It was overwhelming to be introduced to other collegiate teams, sponsored anglers, FLW officials, and an official weigh-in station. It was so much in such a short time.
On the first day of the tournament, my co-angler, Charlie Machek, and I stuck to our plan based on pre-fishing observations and fished every lay down in site. The morning was slow - actually, our live well remained totally bare. But we continued to throw our spinnerbaits at every limb on every tree, sometimes staying in one place for more than 15 minutes. After fishing an area where we had luck pre-fishing, we continued to throw to the banks as we trolled around the point. We maneuvered into a small cove where a few trees lay in the water and we began to fish them. Casting my spinnerbait into a fallen oak tree, I felt it drag across a limb, and I let it drop a little before I reeled again. After the first turn of my reel I felt a bite and immediately set the hook. It was the first hook-up of the day, and we were so excited, Charlie dashed for the net as I fought the fish. The rod was bent over and the drag was being pulled, so I knew I had a nice one, but still, words cannot explain the shock I got when I first saw it roll on the water and as the net swept it up. This fish was something I had never seen before. It was enormous. I'll never forget our stutters of disbelief, us shaking with excitement, screaming and thinking the word "prehistoric" when we saw that fish. In more than 10 years of fishing, I had never caught or even seen a fish this big, or this beautiful.
The weigh-in was a whole other story. It was such a great feeling to pull the big bass out of the live well, and walk to the holding tank as everyone stared into my bag. Just imagine the anticipation of waiting for my name to be called and finally hearing the official weight of the fish: 8 pounds, 15 ounces. Showing it off to the crowd and describing it for the crowd was all so much to take in.
The whole thing was so over-the-top, to have been my first largemouth bass citation by weight, in my first ever collegiate bass tournament, in a lake I'd never seen before. To this day I still don't believe I caught that fish.
— Brett E. Thompson
